


I Love You, Don't Follow Me

by hipsterariel



Series: The Lonely Road [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bipolar Disorder, Bipolar Ian, Gallavich, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, One Shot, Prisonbreak, post 6x01 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hipsterariel/pseuds/hipsterariel
Summary: The one where Mickey escapes from prison and runs away with Ian.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one shot is now the prologue to a multi-chap Mickey fugitive spin-off I am writing, [The Boy with no Name](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8224894/chapters/18850081)

It’s three in the morning when Mickey makes his decision. Ian is laying next to him, asleep, peaceful. Beautiful. Mickey’s heart feels heavy but his mind is surprisingly clear; the weight of his decision is lighter than the nagging doubt that followed him from Chicago to their shitty motel room on the i90. Mickey vaguely remembers hearing once that no good decisions can be made in the middle of the night, that the brain gets tired and starts falling asleep or some fucking biology shit. He tries to remember who told him that, and thinks it sounds like something his ma would have said. But he disregards it, like he has done with most advice he’s been given in his lifetime. Mickey doesn’t have much of a track record for making good decisions at the best of times, which is why he’s sitting in a motel room in Ohio, a fugitive. A prison escapee. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. But even with his questionable life choices that trail him like heavy, persistent shadows, as he awkwardly scrawls out a goodbye letter to Ian on the back of their gas station receipts, Mickey has never felt more confident, more certain of anything in his life. 

He takes a drag of his cigarette and looks down for the last time, at the mess of pale skin and red hair and freckles laying naked in the bed next to him. His gaze becomes fixated, and he feels mesmerized, unable to look away, like he is memorising everything that is Ian; every curve of Ian’s body, every freckle, every blemish on his skin. But he knows he doesn’t have to try, because Ian Gallagher is already committed to his memory. He is etched upon his skin, in more ways than one. Forever and always. 

The feeling of Ian’s mouth against Mickey’s can still be felt upon his lips and his arse is aching in the best way, the familiar dull burn that reminds him of the two of them together a few short hours ago. Tomorrow there will be bruises on his hips and neck. There is cum drying slowly on the sheets and Mickey knows he should probably find it disgusting it but he doesn’t, because it’s them. Mickey and Ian. He closes his eyes and tries to remember each individual time they were together, but it’s impossible of course. Instead, the history of the two of them plays out in his mind in reverse and it’s a beautiful and heartbreaking mess of love and hate, pleasure, pain and tragedy. Happiness that he never thought he deserved and certainly didn’t ever expect to experience. The good, the bad and the devastatingly tragic.

Mickey swallows the lump in his throat as he folds the wad of receipts, his letter to Ian, in half. It feels finished. Complete. Mickey isn’t much of a writer but he knows he’ll never write anything more honest or meaningful than this. It’s beautiful and sad and real, if he does say so himself, and it’s written on the back of garbage, which feels fitting in a strange sort of a way, like a metaphor for everything they shared back on the Southside. 

Mickey silently slides into his clothes, and leaves the letter and three hundred dollars on the bedside table next to Ian. It’s more than enough money for Ian to buy a bus ticket back to Chicago and some food and another night in a hotel if he needs it. He turns around once more when he reaches the door and watches Ian in his sleep for a few final moments that feel like an eternity and a heartbeat at the same time. He’s doing the right thing. Mickey knows this. He feels the surety of it in his gut in a way he’s never felt anything before. 

_I love you_ , he thinks and he feels the painful sting of emotion behind his eyes.

He remembers that phrase that people seem to like throwing around, _if you love somebody set them free_. He always thought it was some bullshit platitude and maybe it is. But at three forty five on a Wednesday morning at a dodgy hotel in Ohio, when he says his final silent goodbye to Ian Gallagher, the platitude comforts him. It nods at him, pats him on the back, looks at him knowingly and says, _you really are doing the right thing, Mickey_. He feels validated; all his feelings and emotions have already been thought and put to words, wrapped up in a tidy little sentence by someone wiser, and smarter and more knowledgeable about life and love than Mickey fucking Milkovich. 

He’s back on the road, driving east on i90 and he doesn’t look back. He wants to, but he knows if he’s going to do this, he has to keep his eyes on the road, he has to keep looking ahead and focus on his future in all its terrifying and treacherous uncertainty. If he looks behind him, he’ll turn around and go back to Ian. He’ll let Ian convince him that they can be together, that as long as they’re together everything will be okay. But Mickey knows it won’t be. Because Ian needs his medication and his therapy, and a stable life. Ian needs things that Mickey would struggle to provide him under the best of circumstances and are near impossible now he’s a convicted felon on the run from the law. 

This realisation is bittersweet and the pain of it all threatens to consume him as it radiates through his entire being, burning and sharp, in the way that only emotional hurt knows how. But he takes comfort in the knowledge that Ian was ready to give it all up for him. Mickey knows now that he could have had Ian, that Ian was ready to give himself over to that life, to Mickey. Somehow this knowledge solidifies Mickey’s decision to leave and he accelerates, the engine purring appreciatively under his foot. He wonders whether that was all he really needed; to know that Ian was willing to go all in for him. Maybe that’s a selfish way to look at it, but Mickey doesn’t dwell on it. There’s no time.

He concentrates on the road in front of him, illuminated by intermittent street lights that punctuate the miles and miles of blackened tar like a gap toothed smile. Mickey has to force himself to keep his eyes on the road because his tears are falling and he wonders if they’ll ever stop. But he lets them fall, regardless. His face is wet and hot and he’s sobbing in a way that isn’t cute or endearing or masculine at all. But he doesn’t make excuses, doesn’t wipe the tears away, or curse himself, or revert to an internal monologue of faux bravado. He just lets it happen. Because if he’s going to cry unashamedly about anything in his life, it may as well be this. The time he said his final goodbye to Ian Gallagher.

 _I love you Ian_ , he says to himself, _don’t follow me._

**Author's Note:**

> So there it is. If Gallavich has to end, this is how I want it to go down. If the writer's have any sense at all, they'll let it be Mickey's decision. 
> 
> This is one of my favourite songs - The Jeep Song; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyEhb0erzW0 . It has always reminded me of Gallavich, and parts of it inspired the beginning of my other multi-chap fic, but reminds me of them even more so now with the black jeep spoiler. Give it a listen, it's sad and funny and pretty.


End file.
